You see, that really doesn’t address my argument.
Sort of, “well, I know this verse over here is true so I can safely ignore these other verses which disagree with me.”
I think you and I are both well-versed enough in the Bible to know that it’s easy to go hunting for texts that seem to support our theology. The problem lies in when your theology is utterly broken by there passages. That should indicate to you that your theology is insufficient.
Being that theology is, after all, the product of the mind of a man, or a group of men, that shouldn’t be too hard to swallow.
Jesus said:
“And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
That statement utterly breaks Calvinism.
It shows that people have two, equally real, equally possible eternal states. It also shows that the person can effect their eternal state by their choices.
Actually, I think it does.
And I don't see how the passage you provided contradicts my position. Jesus is teaching how dee the sin in us is. In Him we have our rest BTW.
“You see, that really doesn’t address my argument.
Sort of, “well, I know this verse over here is true so I can safely ignore these other verses which disagree with me.”
But yet, this is PRECISELY your argument, as you go on to confess:
“I think you and I are both well-versed enough in the Bible to know that it’s easy to go hunting for texts that seem to support our theology”
Why do you ignore the scripture, merely pointing to another verse hoping that they contradict the rest? You can’t expect me to take your argument seriously, especially when it falls back upon your own head, do you? Furthermore, your argument here is a strawman:
“It shows that people have two, equally real, equally possible eternal states. It also shows that the person can effect their eternal state by their choices.”
It certainly shows that a person must make a choice, but whether a Christian can fail to come to Christ or ever fall away, that is not proven by it.
For the choice aspect, we do not deny that Christians choose, believe, follow and do. This does not touch me, and never can. We simply deny that a man can choose, believe, follow and do, without the grace of God. We also say that the presence of any command does not imply a moral ability within man to follow them. For example, when Christ tells the fellow to “sin no more” (John 5:14), is that something within his power to do? What about in keeping the entirety of the law? Who ever fails to do so is described, according to Paul, as “Cursed,” since “cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal 3:10). That’s quite a serious punishment, and the command is given, so, logically, you must have the power to keep the whole law, right? You wouldn’t receive a command you couldn’t possibly keep. Yet, you don’t, and none of us ever can, “for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20). And
Gal_3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
So you can provide examples of commandments all day long, and I will only keep explaining, as Luther wonderfully did,
“Does it follow from: ‘turn ye’ that therefore you can turn? Does it follow from “’Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart’ (Deut 6.5) that therefore you can love with all your heart? What do arguments of this kind prove, but the ‘free-will’ does not need the grace of God, but can do all things by its own power...But it does not follow from this that man is converted by his own power, nor do the words say so; they simply say: “if thou wilt turn, telling man what he should do. When he knows it, and sees that he cannot do it, he will ask whence he may find ability to do it...”
“when you are finished with all your commands and exhortations ... I’ll write Ro.3:20 over the top of it all”
(On the Bondage of the Will)
If you can choose to believe in Christ by your own free-will, why can you only confess him “but by the Holy Ghost?” If you have the power to believe, then you should be able to believe whether you have the Holy Spirit or not. Yet, you can’t, and you don’t, and you never will, for “no man can come unto me unless it is given unto Him of my Father.”
This is what it looks like to actually address all the scripture, not ignoring every verse you do not like and cannot explain, as you do.